Looking for a house is hard. Looking while recognising that this will be your long-term home — not a rental, not a summer vacation — is even harder.

You find yourself confronting unspoken pre-reqs. And sometimes, unfortunately, even the happiest of couples have different pre-reqs. Which makes for…interesting conversations. 🙂

My beloved & I are finally on task to move to be w/ our son, DIL, & grandson. So obviously we need someplace to live (believe it or not, the ‘kids’ don’t want parents living forever in their basement!).

I want small — little to clean up, little to maintain. My beloved wants comfort, and a big garage. I’d just as soon sell my car & get a Vespa (yes!). He’s not down with that.

I’m fine w/ a fixer-upper: not structural changes, but maybe hardwoods, and new kitchen countertops. Possibly having to frame in a carport. He’s worried we’ll over-commit, and get a house that needs far too much fixing up. I like Mission & Craftsman bungalows; he’s fine w/ almost anything.

via wikipedia

The point to this is we carry around all kinds of unexamined attachments — to smaller houses, to our childhood homes, to work spaces. But also to far less tangible desires: success, pride, bias. Even if some are ‘positive’ — a work ethic is desirable at work, but may well interfere w/ home life if pursued slavishly.

So I’m letting go — as much as I can — of my attachments to a certain kind of house, hoping I can instead create a home. And that will — I hope! — be enough for both of us. Whatever our initial attachments.

Britton Gildersleeve

Britton Gildersleeve is a 'third culture kid.' Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks ‘without,’ as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She’s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. She is (still) working on her beginner's heart ~